Basic Terminology

Begin by looking at the controls for your helicopter's and plane's cockpit (this is in keybinds or control options). There are some terms you need defined for proper aircraft operation:

Throttle - Pertains to the amount of power being supplied to move the aircraft from its engine, be it for forward motion (taxiing or flight) or ascending (leaving the ground). To ascend or to move quickly requires a lot of engine power, and the throttle should display very high readings.

Pitch - The angle the aircraft's nose is pointing, in regards to the Z-axis. Planes which travel forward and pitch up tend to climb; planes which pitch down tend to descend. For helicopters, pitching down is necessary to move forward, while pitching the nose up will make the chopper move backwards.

Yaw - This is what most layman refer to as "turning" a vehicle. Unlike ground vehicles, aircraft move in a 3-dimensional environment and may pitch, roll, bank, yaw, and ascend or descend. Note that yawing left or right will usually not result in banking or rolling; this allows for small course corrections without turning the aircraft to one side.

Roll - This is when an aircraft rolls to one side (so your view would be flipped/turned 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise). Chiefly used for planes, as helicopters cannot roll too far without losing lift (resulting in a crash). For planes, a roll to one side, coupled with climbing or descending, results in a banking manuever.

Bank - This is chiefly a plane-only manuever (although skilled chopper pilots may perform this to a limted degree), and is a combination of a roll while ascending or descending to turn. Race cars are one of the few ground vehicles to do a banking maneuever .... with assistance from specially made racetracks.

Freelook - This is a function to mimic the pilot looking around his cockpit. Once the Freelook function is activated, your controls to roll the aircraft are temporarily disabled while you control your character's head to look around. Best used when your aircraft is hovering or flying on a stable course.